KIEV, July 14 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday Russia is refusing to hold talks with Kiev on the delimitation of the Kerch Strait.

The two countries have been in a dispute over their maritime borders since the early 1990s.

"Official representatives of the Russian Federation have started refusing to hold talks with Ukraine on the delimitation of the Kerch Strait," the ministry said.

"Such a position by the Russian Federation does not meet agreements reached both as part of the negotiating process to delimitate the Azov and Black seas and the Kerch Strait and the Russian side's commitment to a Ukraine-Russia treaty on the state border of January 28, 2003," it said.

Ukraine is insisting a border be drawn in the Kerch Strait, which links the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea, along the administrative boundary that existed between Russia and Ukraine in the former Soviet Union.

Russia, however, maintains that inland water areas were not subject to boundaries in the Soviet era, and therefore this principle is not applicable.